Riot purchases BTC miners worth $290M from MicroBT

Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT), has announced the purchase of over 66k miners from Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer MicroBT.

The purchase adds to the 33,280 miners Riot secured in an earlier agreement. It is the company’s largest so far, Riot CEO Jason Les said in a press release.

Riot purchases 18 EH/s of miners from MicroBT

According to the mining firm, the new order is for 66,560 of MicroBT’s M66S model, a recently announced miner boasting an efficiency rating of 18.5 Joules per terahash. The total cost for the miners will be $290.5 million, with the average price per TH at approximately $16.

Riot also said it had updated its long term purchase agreement with MicroBT, which gives the miner the option to acquire up to 265,000 additional miners. These purchases will bear the same terms as the newly announced order.

“The price of these future purchase options will not exceed our current order as announced today, giving Riot the ability to more effectively plan future capital requirements and providing protection from potentially higher market prices for miners in the future,” Les noted.

Deployment of the 33,280 MicroBT miners will happen in the first quarter of 2024, while delivery for the just announced batch will begin in the second half of next year. Riot expects the two orders to be fully delivered in the second half of 2025, with the company’s total self-mining hash rate surpassing 38EH/s.

If Riot completes the future purchases, it would acquire an additional 75 EH/s and see its self-mining capacity rise to over 100 EH/s.

RIOT price jumps as Bitcoin soars above $40k

News of Riot’s strategic purchases and expansion plans appears to have buoyed investors. As of Monday afternoon, the mining company’s stock price was up 8% on the day and nearly 24% in the past week.

RIOT was up 345% year-to-date at $15.07. However, it remains down on July 2023 highs above $20 and all-time high above $79.50 reached in February 2021. While the current price is significantly down on the ATH, the bullish outlook for Bitcoin could see RIOT rally higher.

On Monday, Bitcoin price reached highs of $42k for the first time since April 2022.